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Sunday, December 21, 2014

what is et al.??

“Et al.” is a scholarly abbreviation of the Latin phrase et alia, which means “and others.” It is commonly used when you don’t want to name all the people or things in a list, and works in roughly the same way as “etc.”

Example:

“The reorganization plan was designed by Alfred E. Newman, General Halftrack, Zippy the Pinhead, et al.; and it was pretty useless.”

Please note:

The “al.” in this phrase needs a period after it to indicate it is an abbreviation of alia, but it is incorrect to put a period after “et.”